Playing with food: Stephanie Gonot's colorful culinary photography

Photographer Stéphanie Gonot's food photos aren't the stylized, sexy kind you'd see on the cover of magazines like Bon Appetit. Images in her 'Fad Diets' series are frightening visual documents of some of the weirder diets out there, while also being striking experiments in color and texture. They may not make your mouth water, but they are a lot of fun, and might just make you reconsider that crash diet...

Here's a selection of her work, from 'Fad Diets' and other series'. Her website, www.stephaniegonot.com is well worth checking out.

People following the 'Seven-day Color Diet' eat items of a single color each day. Photo from the 'Fad Diets' series by Stéphanie Gonot.

The 'Five Bite' diet involves eating whatever you want for lunch or dinner but only to have five bites of it. Photo from the 'Fad Diets' series by Stéphanie Gonot.

Certainly not the best editorial images criticizing food habits I've seen, but to say they are not good images seems a bit snipey, particularly because you present no explanation of this declaration. Why, because they don't subscribe to spacial conventions over-used in nearly every food article or cook book? They are functioning more deadpan spacially, but yet many do have a sensualism because of formal strategies, including indulgent use of color - also appropriate given conceptual imperatives here.

I could offer more substantial criticism on conceptual grounds - it is a bit one dimensional. But they are compelling visually and my point here is to simply to say that you miss the point and might be well served to read the article more closely (as well as witness the fuller context of her work on her website). It is strange to a lack of commercial appeal given the fact that these are not images to sell these products. But, to be fair, there is no harm in this comment. Still, keep in mind, these are editorial, which seems to me, quite obvious.

Alpha Whiskey: your photos are nice but I see little value in posting them in relationship to this work. This work is editorial, thus it functions outside its potential for marketing. And, frankly, this artist's visual approaches do seem fresher (no pun) than yours. That is intended as constructive criticism. But, ultimately, we are talking apples compared to oranges.

My original comment didn't criticise this work (although you seem to be her defence attorney here:)). And in my blog post, which isn't for marketing either, I state quite clearly that my food photos are a first for me, so your observation about 'freshness' is actually spot on. I just don't find the food in this set particularly inviting or appealing. The artistic merit of the photography is a matter of personal taste. I would be interested to see if you had photos of your own that you could dare to share with us, since you seem to offer a lot of critique across many articles on this site :) Cheers.

They're cute... and its a unique idea.... the photography is certainly not all that great though.. (ie: the last photo is too narrow of field in my opinion).. and the grass in front of the "bowl" of fruit loops is distracting (a clean dirt area in front would be more dramatic..) Kudos for a good idea though.